The Greatest Generation is Leaving Us

On this Memorial Day weekend comes the story that the men and women who made up our WWII fighting forces are leaving us at a rate of more than 1,000 a day:

NEW ORLEANS — They were a swashbuckling lot — parachuting behind enemy lines, charging onto sandy beaches as bullets whizzed by, liberating countries from a totalitarian grip.

They jitterbugged the nights away, sang about faraway sweethearts and painted the noses of their B-17 bombers with bawdy pinups. "They're overpaid, over-sexed and over here," the British groused about their American allies.

And now, they're dying off, and with them the memories that defined what has been called the Greatest Generation.

As their ranks shrink, the National World War II Museum is one of several organizations rushing to preserve the personal accounts of veterans. Other such efforts are sponsored by the Library of Congress and the U.S. Latino and Latina WWII Oral History Project.

Once 16 million strong, U.S. veterans of World War II are dying at a rate of more than 1,000 a day and now number about 2.5 million, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates.

"I think that's low now," said Martin Morgan, historian for the World War II Museum in New Orleans of the number of vets dying each day. "But judging by the passing of the World War I veterans, we're predicting they will all be gone by 2020."

My father-in-law was a young man, still in his teens, when he entered the Army and eventually fought in France, receiving a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts. When I look at my own kids, who are 19 and 16, it's hard to imagine them taking on the kinds of roles that were asked of kids their age during the war.

He's 82 now and still going strong, and hopefully he'll be with us for quite awhile to come.